Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Crisco Drippings

This is obviously one of those days designed to make me feel like I'm not completely going crazy. (I'm grateful for this because I have a terrible cold and I feel like driving my car into a guard rail to end the misery.) But, glory of all glories, the Washington Post has published an editorial taking Attorney General Ashcroft to task for his disgraceful testimony last week.

IN HIS TESTIMONY last week before the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft loosed a remarkable attack on Jamie S. Gorelick, a commission member who served as deputy attorney general during part of the Clinton administration. The "single greatest structural cause for the September 11th problem," Ashcroft said, "was the wall that segregated or separated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," and the "basic architecture for the wall . . . was contained in a classified memorandum" from 1995 -- which Mr. Ashcroft had conveniently declassified for the hearing. "Full disclosure," he said, "compels me to inform you that the author of this memorandum is a member of the commission" -- that is, Ms. Gorelick. Mr. Ashcroft's allegations, which triggered criticism and demands for her resignation from prominent Republicans, are grossly unfair.

[...]

Pretending that such a deep-seated institutional problem was Ms. Gorelick's single-handed creation should have been beneath the attorney general.

It wasn't all that much commented upon as far as I can tell, but it truly was one of the most shocking performances by an Attorney General I have ever seen. As I wrote in my mildmannered piece entitled Consummate Prick:

Has there ever been a more blatantly partisan Attorney General than the Crisco Kid? This testimony today was contemptuous, dishonest and disturbingly inappropriate.

I also haven't heard anything from Senator Kill Bill yet about citing Thomas Pickard for perjury:

BEN-VENISTE: And you told the staff according to this statement that Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this [terrorism] anymore. Is that correct?